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07. Land and sustainable food Production 61
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Natural Environment
Climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. We will work together including through the Environment and Climate Change Partnership to protect, restore and enhance County Durham’s natural ecosystems so that they contribute towards addressing the ecological emergency and climate emergency, in an integrated way.
Where we are now in 2022
Peatland restoration and woodland creation have been underway for some years, with new kelp and oyster habitat restoration work now on stream. Though a programme of restoration is in place, County Durham’s peatland is the most damaged in the North Pennines, and, whilst improving, woodland cover within the county is below the national average at 8.58%23 .
Laying foundations for 2030
The state of the county’s natural environment will be fully understood. All degraded areas of peatland will be either in recovery or restored. Our woodland cover will improve, whilst ensuring that the right trees are planted in the right place. Restoration of our marine ecosystems and blue carbon research will continue. Awareness of the value of nature-based solutions will be raised.
County Durham’s Vision for 2045
County Durham’s ecosystems will be thriving and resilient in the face of climate extremes. Opportunities to aid nature recovery and maximise carbon storage will have been realised.
Key Challenges
Climate change is a significant threat to nature and taking correct and timely steps to improve nature’s resilience to storms, droughts, wildfire risk and new pests and diseases will be vital. However, without adequate knowledge of the current state of County Durham’s natural environment and the carbon sequestration value of some habitats it will be difficult to do this and align nature recovery and climate priorities effectively. Public opposition may need to be overcome as changes in land use and management methods are made.
Key Highlights
• 16,000 hectares of blanket bog has been restored in County
Durham, avoiding 192,000 tonnes of carbon from being emitted each year.
• Since 2020, 61 hectares of land has been planted with trees, helping to offset an estimated 22,113 tonnes of carbon by 2045.
• Certification of projects to the UK Peatland Code and Woodland
Carbon Code, along with the sale of carbon credits are underway.
• Considerable opportunities to restore oyster habitats have been identified off the Durham coast.
• 40 hectares of Council owned land has been placed under positive management for wildlife.
© North Pennines AONB Partnership
23Source: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Woodland Coverage Where You Live Back to contents
Natural Environment Emergency Response Plan
Introduction
Climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked, and it is recognised that both issues need to be addressed in an integrated way. Urgent actions are needed as Britain is now one of the most nature depleted countries in Europe24. Cabinet on 6th April 2022 have declared an ecological emergency in response to this issue.
Climate change threatens the survival of County Durham’s unique habitats and will alter the distribution and types of species we see. For example, high altitude plants, such as Teesdale’s unique arctic and alpine flora, have adapted to low temperatures and are likely to decline in response to rising temperatures.
As temperatures increase, we also see changes in our insect and bird populations as their food supply and migration pattern changes. Warmer winters also reduce the hibernation periods for mammals which impacts on their survival and breeding rates. Furthermore, climate change is likely to increase invasive species, introduce new pests and diseases to our natural environment and increase the risk of damage to our habitats from storms, drought, and wildfires.
Upper Teesdale in the North Pennines AONB is the only place in Britain where you’ll find the blue (or spring) gentian © Martin Rogers Photography.
Whilst significantly threatened by climate change, nature within County Durham is a vital part of the solution to it. Our county is fortunate to host a diverse range of ecosystems, from peatlands to the coast, which when healthy, can store significant amounts of carbon in soils, sediments, and vegetation. In addition, our natural environment can help us to adapt to the impacts of climate change by protecting communities from flooding and helping to cool environments.
By protecting, restoring, and sensitively managing County Durham’s natural and semi-natural habitats we will store more carbon, help the county to adapt to the impacts of climate change, aid nature recovery and deliver wider co-benefits for the natural environment and our own health and wellbeing.
Interactions with other themes
Business and Skills
Nature-based solutions to climate change will help to support and diversify rural, conservation and land-based businesses, create jobs and develop skills. For example, opportunities exist to increase local supplies of trees and plants to meet woodland planting and peatland restoration ambitions. Businesses will be able to offset their carbon emissions through the purchasing of carbon credits, linked to woodland creation and peatland restoration schemes in County Durham.
24Source: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2020/september/uk-has-led-the-world-in-destroying-the-natural-environment.html
Food and Land
The Government’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme is due to be fully rolled out by the end of 2024 and will reward environmental management.
ELM should increase nature recovery and woodland creation efforts across farms and estates within County Durham. Careful management of the scheme will be needed to ensure compatibility with local food production aims.
Adaptation
The recovery and creation of new habitats can provide a range of important benefits to this theme. For example, the creation of new woodland, in the right place, can provide shade, shelter and natural flood management.
Engagement and Education
Activities such as community tree planting projects, provide a ‘hands on’, opportunity to engage with schools and communities on climate change and the solutions to it.
Active engagement and education are also needed where different practices and approaches to land management are being implemented in order to gain public support.
Nature Based
Delivering nature-based solutions to climate change appropriately across County Durham will aid nature recovery.
Fair and Just Transition
Providing green spaces close to homes allows all residents to experience nature, improving health and wellbeing, and enabling inclusivity between communities who share such spaces.
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Durham County Council - Leading by Example
The Council is leading by example by:
• Actively pursuing tree planting opportunities on its own land and with others. • Developing a woodland creation carbon market which will help to support local, tree planting projects across County Durham. • Adopting a less intensive approach to the management of its land and ensuring its woodlands are managed in a way which enhances their ability to capture carbon. • Increasing the rate of peatland restoration through support for the North Pennines AONB Partnership. • Supporting the Durham Heritage Coast Partnership with blue carbon projects. • Developing a Local Nature Recovery Strategy with non-departmental public bodies and partners from the charitable and private sectors. • Developing an Ecological Emergency Action Plan • Policy 41 of the County Durham Plan seeks to ensure that Proposals for new development minimise impacts on biodiversity by retaining and enhancing existing biodiversity and providing biodiversity net gains, including establishing coherent ecological networks The council, with its partners manages several woodland creation projects. Since the approval of the Climate Emergency Response Plan, over 61 hectares of land has been planted with trees. 26 hectares of which, was Council owned land. In addition, 1,938 large standard roadside trees have been planted through the Urban Tree Challenge Fund. The woodland and roadside trees planted will help to offset an estimated 897 tonnes of carbon by 2050.
The council is also working with Forest Carbon to generate carbon credits from woodland creation on Council-owned land. An initial 5-year agreement will provide a range of services including registration and validation with the Woodland Carbon Code, verification and sale of carbon credits. Income from the sale of carbon credits can then be reinvested to help manage the council’s expanding woodland portfolio. Please see Forest Carbon25 for further information.
The council is responsible for the management of 1800 hectares of its own woodland estate which has Forestry Commission approved management plans. A five-year programme of active management will commence in January 2022 to improve their condition. Management, such as removing invasive plant species, improves woodlands, making them healthier and more resilient to climate change whilst enhancing carbon storage.
In addition to woodlands, the council also manages 3,000 hectares of diverse council owned land, comprised of parks, school grounds, amenity open space, roadside verges, cemeteries, closed churchyards etc. To date, 17 suitable sites have been subject to a less intensive approach to management, helping to reduce carbon emissions and benefit wildlife. Traditionally, such sites required cutting 14 times a year and this has been reduced to one cut and collect.
Over the last few years, 40 hectares of council owned land has either been placed under positive management for wildlife or sown with wildflower seeds as part of a nature-based approach to management. This benefits biodiversity and reduces carbon associated with mowing, whilst also providing an attractive, visual impact for residents and visitors to the county. The performance of the current sites and seed mixes will be monitored and further sites will be brought into nature-based management as the project expands.
25https://www.forestcarbon.co.uk/
Wildflowers at Bishop Auckland Town Park
Use of fungicides and pesticides across the council’s estate have also been greatly reduced. Usage is very minimal and reserved for the management of fine sport turf facilities such as bowling greens only. Whilst subject to trial, the council is also using recycled soil conditioner (produced by the council’s green waste scheme) and buying in peat free composts for its central plant nursery.
The council provided additional support to the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership over the CERP1 period (2020/22), which helped to increase the rate of peatland restoration over and above programmed activity, enabling the restoration of a further 52 hectares of peatland over 4 sites in County Durham.
The Council have also been actively supporting the Durham Heritage Coast Partnership and Seascapes Partnership with two separate blue carbon projects26 involving the restoration of kelp and oysters.
Furthermore, the council is likely to be the Responsible Authority for the production of County Durham’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), supported by a wide range of local and national conservation organisations. LNRS are a new, England-wide system of spatial strategies that will establish biodiversity priorities and map opportunities for nature recovery across the landscape, in both urban and rural areas. They will also provide wider environmental benefits including tackling climate change. The Council is also seeking to develop an Ecological Emergency Action Plan by Autumn 2022.
Overall, the council is responsible for approximately 2.7% of County Durham’s land of which only a fraction will be available to deliver nature-based solutions to tackle climate change27. If we need to capture 5% of County Durham’s emissions each year to 2045 to become a carbon neutral county by 2024, and support adaptation to climate change, it will be vital to work with other partners, landowners and the wider community to deliver nature-based solutions.
26Blue carbon refers to carbon that is stored in marine ecosystems. These ecosystems sequester and store around 2% of UK emissions per year and also provide other benefits such as biodiversity, flood protection and support for valuable fish and shellfish populations. UK Parliament Post - Blue Carbon (Sep 2021). 27The Council own 5,921 hectares of land which is 2.65% of County Durham’s total land area of 223,260 hectares. Back to contents
Actions & Partnerships
In order to ensure that nature-based solutions address climate change and biodiversity loss in an integrated it will be necessary to work together to:
• Protect and restore our peatland. Healthy peatlands store and sequester huge amounts of carbon -they are our largest natural carbon store – but damaged peatlands are carbon emitters on a grand scale. We need to restore all our remaining degraded peatlands and ensure their positive management. • Create new native, broadleaved woodlands, increasing County Durham’s woodland cover, whilst ensuring that trees are grown in the right place. • Protect and restore our coastal and marine habitats in order to optimise the storge of carbon, improve water quality and minimise the impacts of climate change to our coastal communities. • Protect our existing semi-natural habitats, recognising that due to intensive management, these are rare, contain native species not found elsewhere and many of these habitats also store appreciable amounts of carbon. • Target nature-based solutions to places where they can have the most benefit. Recognising that different approaches will work better in different parts of the county, and it is important to maximise synergies if we are to meet our targets on climate change, whilst restoring biodiversity and meeting the needs of our communities. • Contribute towards research and filling gaps in knowledge on the role that habitats play in climate change mitigation; and • Plan mitigation and adaptation to climate change together. There are several key challenges we will need to overcome if we are to successfully deliver the above, namely:
• There is no current, clear picture on the state of County Durham’s natural environment to align nature recovery and climate change mitigation and adaptation priorities. The production of a LNRS will help in part but will take time to complete. • Offsetting 5% of County Durham’s emissions each year to 2025 through nature-based solutions will be a huge challenge and is highly dependent on the availability and suitability of land along with the cooperation of landowners. • Lack of evidence on the carbon sequestration values of some habitats makes it difficult to prioritise actions. • Less intensive approach to the management of land may meet public opposition e.g., reduced mowing of amenity grassland. • The following information provides further detail on some of the wider partnership work that is taking place across the county to address climate change through nature-based solutions. Peatland Restoration
The North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership team works with landowners and others to bring about nature recovery and engage people with nature and heritage. The AONB Partnership’s peat team has been working to conserve and restore the 90,000 hectares of peatland in the North Pennines area28 .
County Durham’s 32,000 hectares of peatland is the most damaged within the entirety of the North Pennines AONB, due to several contributing factors, including natural topography and climate.
28North Pennines Peatland Programme
Bare peat restoration showing coir rolls and stone dams: © North Pennines AONB Partnership
However, the peat team has successfully led the restoration of 16,000 hectares of County Durham’s blanket bog, predominantly through grip blocking, reinstating natural drainage patterns and the restoration of bare/eroding peat. In addition to benefits to biodiversity etc, the restoration of County Durham’s peatlands has avoided 192,000 tonnes of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere each year. This is the equivalent to removing approximately 2,800 cars from the UK’s roads each year, or the annual emissions from around 400,000 UK homes. Restored peatlands begin to sequester carbon around 5 years after restoration.
It is estimated that around 4,000 hectares remains to be restored in County Durham of which, the majority is bare, eroding peat, requiring revegetation works to be undertaken. Over the CERP2 period, the potential restoration of 1,162ha could avoid 23,240 tonnes of carbon from being emitted from County Durham’s peatlands each year.
In addition, the AONB Partnership is actively working to develop new Peatland Code restoration sites across County Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland and is also one of the founding partners of the Great North Bog coalition. The Great North Bog is an ambitious, landscape-scale peatland restoration initiative which aims to restore all of the remaining degraded peatland in the North of England over the next 20 years, through collaboration on funding, training, restoration and engagement to make a step change to current rates of restoration29. The project is receiving international attention.
Woodland Creation
The Durham Woodland Creation programme was established by the Council in August 2020. The programme aims to plant 10,000 trees in each of the 14 Area Action Partnerships (AAP’s), whilst ensuring that one tree for every school child in the county is planted. The Trees for Children element is being delivered in partnership with County Durham’s Outdoor And Sustainability Education Specialists (OASES) who will work with at least 70 schools. To date, a portfolio of sites, over 33 hectares has been approved for planting in winter, 2021/22.
The Durham Woodland Revival project aims to plant more than 80ha of new woodland, an area the size of the Historic Durham City centre, whilst providing skills to help community groups manage local woodlands30. 26.9 hectares of land has been planted to date along with 920 metres of hedgerows.
The Urban Tree Challenge Fund (UTCF) has supported the planting and maintenance of 1,139 large trees and 11,229 whips across County Durham’s towns and villages to date. A further application has been submitted to the fund to plant 799 large trees over winter 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Tree Week grants which are awarded to small community and landowner tree planting projects enabled the planting of 2,191 trees across County Durham during 2021.
29Great North Bog project 30http://www.woodlandrevivalproject.info/ Back to contents
New tree planting opportunities include:
• The North Pennines A68 Corridor project - joint scheme between the Council, the North Pennines AONB
Partnership, the Woodland Trust and the Forestry Commission. The area to the west of the A68 is identified as having the potential for large scale woodland creation. • North East Community Forest - The Council has joined other North East local authorities31 to plant tens of thousands of trees each year across the region, by 2050, creating England’s latest community forest.
The Council are hoping to plant a further 180 hectares of new woodland over 4 years as part of this programme. • Through its Tees Swale programme, the North Pennines AONB Partnership is aiming to expand woodland and scrub cover in Teesdale, with a target of 200,000 trees by 2025. The AONB team is also seeking resources to facilitate its ambition to double woodland cover in the area over the current decade. Hedgerows also contribute to carbon sequestration and storage in addition to supporting important aspects of biodiversity and providing shelter for livestock. Over winter 2020/21, 0.7km of new hedge was planted and 1.8km managed through traditional hedge laying techniques by the Durham Hedgerow Partnership32 .
Blue Carbon
The Durham Heritage Coast Partnership and Tyne to Tees, Shores and Seas Partnership (Seascapes) have been working to sequester carbon through marine habitat restoration involving two habitat types:
• Oyster and other bivalves and associated habitat – working with the Wild Oyster Project. • Kelp – working with Newcastle University. Oysters provide key ecosystem services including improving water quality by increasing water clarity, removing excessive nutrients and storing carbon in their shells. The Wild Oysters project has created three rehabilitation hubs in the UK to secure the recovery of native oysters and the services they provide, including Sunderland and Blyth. Seaham was shortlisted but had insufficient depth below the installed pontoons.
Habitat restoration is the next step, introducing shells and gravels (cultch) onto the seabed, which will act as a home for juvenile oysters when they settle. Work to identify suitable sites is ongoing with a long list being produced. Crown Estate have identified considerable opportunity available off the Durham Coast as well as more widely in North East coastal waters.
Kelp are marine algae (seaweeds) that form underwater forests around the coast. Studies of kelp productivity suggest a potential carbon burial by UK kelp forests of 147tCO2e/km²/year. Given the importance of light for the maintenance of healthy kelp populations, the long history of coal mining and depositing of spoil waste on the coast has meant that kelp forests have reduced or disappeared in affected areas. The environmental conditions are now suitable for kelp populations to return.
The Partnerships are working with Newcastle University to test a range of restoration methods focusing on:
• translocation of adult kelp from adjacent healthy populations; and • culturing of kelp in the laboratory for transplanting onto restoration sites. Once the most successful restoration techniques are determined, onsite testing will take place at suitable locations along the Durham Heritage Coast, with a view to creating healthy populations.
31Newcastle, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, Gateshead, and Sunderland 32https://www.durham.gov.uk/haw
